Sunday, October 05, 2014

3,790 Killed Across Iraq in September

Muslims began to celebrate Aid al-Adha, but the fighting continued. At least 228 were killed across Iraq, and another 99 were wounded. Also, the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib apparently is now in the hands of the Islamic State.

ISIS/DAASH militants appear to be in complete control of Abu Ghraib, which is just minutes from Baghdad. Soldiers are said to be unable to leave their bases to go on patrols. This brings the capital within artillery range, particularly the international airport.

“I think he’d be a great president,” Bush told Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade. “He understands what it’s like to be president...he’s seen his dad, he’s seen his brother. He’s a very thoughtful man and he’s weighing his options.”

US Vice President Joe Biden apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and clarified comments that had miffed Turkey's leader, the White House said.

Biden told a forum of students at Harvard University on Thursday that Erdogan had admitted to him that Turkey had erred in closing its porous border to foreign terrorist fighters. The comments incensed Erdogan, who subsequently demanded an apology.

"Vice President Joe Biden spoke today with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clarify recent comments made at Harvard University. The Vice President apologized for any implication that Turkey or other Allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria," the White House said, referring to an acronym for the extremist group also known as ISIS or the Islamic State.

"The Vice President made clear that the United States greatly values the commitments and sacrifices made by our Allies and partners from around the world to combat the scourge of ISIL, including Turkey."

As American warplanes began airstrikes in Syria, a 28-year-old Army veteran from Wisconsin told friends he had traveled to the country to join a Kurdish militia in the fight against ISIS.

After an early discharge from the military, friends say Jordan Matson was searching for something. Online he was a guild leader, delivering rousing speeches to fellow gamers. Away from the computer he was working a third-shift job and depressed about his prospects.

Watching the suffering of Kurdish children, he found a cause. Once he made up his mind, it didn’t take long before Matson found Kurdish contacts online who were willing to help him get to Syria and accept him in their ranks.

“We are aware of the reports that a U.S. citizen has joined the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) to fight against ISIL,” said a State Department spokesperson. “Due to privacy concerns, we have no further comment.”

Matson’s privacy ended not long after he published a Facebook post telling friends he was fighting in Syria. A YPG spokesman, Rêdûr Xelîl, who tweeted about Matson, responded to an initial email but did not provide answers about the American fighting in his ranks.

Now, as news spreads about Matson—mainly by the Kurdish forces he went to help—he’s made a name for himself in the world’s bloodiest war. A war in which Syrians have been slaughtered daily for years and the last images of Americans ended with their beheading. But even with the attention drawing a target on him and the Kurds alongside him, Matson may be more valuable to Kurdish allies as a source of media attention for their plight than as a frontline fighter.

Other Americans have gone to Syria and fought in the civil war there, but Matson may be the first white Christian to do so. In late 2013, a British think tank and defense consultant IHS Jane’s estimated that a few dozen Americans were fighting in Syria. The fear for the government and intelligence community is that Americans will return from Syria to carry out attacks inside the United States. Already, Americans have been charged with planning to join the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front. Matson is a different case and it’s not clear how he will be treated by U.S. authorities if he tries to return to America. While the State Department didn’t decline to address the specifics of Matson’s case, in the past Secretary Kerry has invoked “the authority to revoke the passports” of any American citizen who travels to Syria to join armed groups.

Matson didn’t respond to requests for an interview. But statements from his friends, a review of his military records, criminal convictions, and social media posts, begin to mark the path—away from his troubles and toward the battlefield, and what he believed was righteous sacrifice—that led him to Syria.

The composite portrait of Matson that emerges is of the type of person you usually only read about after something terrible happens. Friends say he was dedicated, quiet, and generous. Arrest records, including one from a suicide attempt in 2012, evoke the anguish of a person at war with himself, looking for a way out.

A few weeks before he left, Matson confided his plans to one of his few close friends: “He was like ‘You know, Dave, I just want to do something that’s gonna mean something.’” Dave Rosenmarkle owns Gracie Veneration gym, where he teaches Brazilian jiujitsu along with his wife, Kelli, near Matson’s hometown of Sturtevant, Wisconsin.Matson would hang out with Rosenmarkle, whom he called boss, and Kelli. They’d get together with others from the gym to watch fights at the Rosenmarkles’ house. And Matson would update him by phone and social media, starting off his messages with “Hey boss.” But in three years of knowing him, Rosenmarkle couldn’t name any of Matson’s friends other than himself and his wife. “I know he had friends outside of his gym,” Rosenmarkle said, “but he seemed to be a bit of a loner, most of his friends came through the training facility.”

“When I first met Jordan in 2011 he had a chain around his neck, not a gold hip-hop chain, I mean like a load-bearing chain. I said what the hell is that and he gave me a kind of philosophical answer,” Rosenmarkle said. “He went by the nickname Link at our gym for, like, a year, because of that.”

In early September, when Matson mentioned going to Syria to fight ISIS, Rosenmarkle didn’t take it for idle talk. “If you know Jordan, when he does something he’s all in. So when he told me ‘I’m going to go fight for the YPG,’ I believed him.” Rosenmarkle is also an Army veteran—he served in Iraq during the invasion. He understood why Matson wanted to put himself in the fight and didn’t try to stop him. “I was just kinda like ‘All right, I understand where you’re coming from. Rumble, young man, rumble,’ you know.”

Rosenmarkle heard from Matson that he was talking with other Army veterans who had contacts with Kurdish forces, some of them with Kurdish guys they had met while they were deployed to Iraq, Rosenmarkle suspected. And he was told that eventually Matson had made contact with the YPG itself, which had put him through a screening process to ensure he wasn’t a jihadi trying to infiltrate their group. On the details of Matson’s contacts—who exactly he was talking to and what they were asking from him—Rosenmarkle kept a distance. “I didn’t really ask because honestly I didn’t want to know.”

Various news accounts have described Matson as a Marine—he isn’t—but the photos of him could give that impression. He’s square-jawed and broad shouldered with attentive eyes that look like they are waiting for orders. There is no listing of an individual by the name of ‘Jordan Matson’ having served,” a Marine public affairs officer told The Daily Beast.

Matson did serve in the Army, but only briefly and never in combat. From May 2007 to November 2007 he was a private first class infantryman assigned to Fort Polk, Louisiana. Standard Army enlistments run from two to six years. That Matson served less than the minimum suggests he may have been discharged early, which could have been the result of an injury, conduct issues, or because of mental or emotional problems.

The Army wouldn’t comment on the nature of Matson’s discharge but records from his run-in with the police show that it was still on his mind five years later.

In November 2012, police officers in Racine County, Wisconsin, pulled Matson over for running a flashing red light. When he slurred and smelled of alcohol, they ordered him out of the car for sobriety tests. “Matson stepped out of the vehicle, did military parade turns and marched to the area on the sidewalk that the officers pointed out to him to stand,” the police report reads.

After he failed the drunk tests, the officers searched his car and found a handgun loaded with hollow-point rounds, one in the chamber. “Officers asked Matson why he had the weapon and Matson stated that he planned to shoot himself that night,” according to the report. He told the cops that he’d tried to kill himself when they pulled him over but when the gun didn’t go off, he put it back in the console and waited to answer their questions.

“Matson stated that he had been depressed since he was ‘railroaded out’ of the military in 2007. He stated he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.” An Army spokesman refused to comment on the nature of Matson’s discharge but the police records show that Matson’s emotional turmoil had other sources. When police asked why he had chosen that night to shoot himself, Matson said, “he was upset about the election results and could not live under a socialist president.”

The next day, as Mitt Romney conceded the election to President Obama, Matson’s mother called the police and told them “her son Jordan was upset because of the election and no longer wanted to be an American and didn’t want to live.” Jordan wouldn’t hurt himself, the dispatcher told his mother, he was already in custody from the night before...

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - In an interview that was aired on Sunday evening, President Obama blamed the intelligence community for not informing him of the dangers posed by the Islamic State. "Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," he told 60 Minutes.

The statement is astounding. Rarely do presidents deflect such blame onto their subordinates on a nationally televised interview, even if the blame is well placed. Unfortunately for Obama, this time it is misplaced.

As it turns out, James Clapper, the director of the CIA, is on record warning Obama and other administration officials no less than eight months ago that the Islamic State, then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, would become a serious threat.

On the Daily Beast, an unnamed intelligence official put it bluntly, "Either the president doesn't read the intelligence he's getting or he's bullshitting."

When a person makes a deliberately counter-factual statement, we refer to such comments by their technical term, which is "lie." Obama lied, which makes him a liar. There is simply no way to coat the issue and change the facts.

...In the 2012 campaign, Obama spoke not only of killing Osama bin Laden; he also said that Al Qaeda had been “decimated.” I pointed out that the flag of Al Qaeda is now flying in Falluja, in Iraq, and among various rebel factions in Syria; Al Qaeda has asserted a presence in parts of Africa, too.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.

“Let’s just keep in mind, Falluja is a profoundly conservative Sunni city in a country that, independent of anything we do, is deeply divided along sectarian lines. And how we think about terrorism has to be defined and specific enough that it doesn’t lead us to think that any horrible actions that take place around the world that are motivated in part by an extremist Islamic ideology are a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”

He went on, “You have a schism between Sunni and Shia throughout the region that is profound. Some of it is directed or abetted by states who are in contests for power there. You have failed states that are just dysfunctional, and various warlords and thugs and criminals are trying to gain leverage or a foothold so that they can control resources, populations, territory. . . . And failed states, conflict, refugees, displacement—all that stuff has an impact on our long-term security. But how we approach those problems and the resources that we direct toward those problems is not going to be exactly the same as how we think about a transnational network of operatives who want to blow up the World Trade Center. We have to be able to distinguish between these problems analytically, so that we’re not using a pliers where we need a hammer, or we’re not using a battalion when what we should be doing is partnering with the local government to train their police force more effectively, improve their intelligence capacities.”>>

October 5, 2014Hamas Was ISIS before There Was an ISISBy Steve Feldman

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told those assembled in the United Nations General Assembly that Hamas and ISIS “are branches of the same poisonous tree,” he had it right – almost. (Despite contradiction from State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki – more on her below.)

Actually, Hamas was ISIS before there was an ISIS.

Hamas declared war on the West in the name of Islam with its Covenant in 1988. Since then, it has put its threats into violent action.

While the brunt of their covenant focuses on the Jewish People (not merely those in Israel), Hamas makes clear that it is an “Islamic Resistance Movement,” motivated by the Koran and the will of Allah to carry out murder, terrorize, and seize territory. Further, according to the covenant, its agenda goes well beyond “Palestine,” extending to the entire Middle East and beyond.

So we have two violent, extremist Muslim organizations bent on conquering territory, imposing sharia on the populace, and with global ambitions.

As for its intended victims, in addition to Jews and “Zionists,” others Hamas wants “obliterated” are the men and women who belong to the Rotary Clubs, the Lions Clubs, and the Masonic organizations – millions of good men and women affiliated with noble and charitable organizations in more than 100 countries.

According to Hamas (Covenant Article 17): “These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.”

Not only will these individuals face slaughter. What about the “collateral damage”: their relatives, neighbors, and co-workers? All must perish, according to Hamas, in the name of Islam.

Be it by bullet, bomb, or beheading, murder is murder. The only real difference between Hamas and ISIS appears to be the preferred method of killing..............

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Donald H. RumsfeldNovember 08, 2005Secretary Rumsfeld Radio Interview with Steve Feldman and Lori Lowenthal Marcus WNWR 1540 AM FELDMAN: Welcome back to our show. We are with a very special guest, Secretary of State [sic] Donald Rumsfeld. Secretary Rumsfeld, welcome to the ZOA Middle East Report.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Thank you very much.

FELDMAN: It's really an honor to have you on our show.

I want to get right into some questions with you. There have been a lot of people, as you know, who are blaming or saying that Israel is responsible for getting the United States into the Iraq war. How do you respond to such allegations?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well it's obviously not correct. People throw allegations around all the time, and a large number of them aren't correct, but the United States made a conscious decision to go to the United Nations, and to express the concern that was felt by most of the Western nations about the fact that Iraq was a terrorist state, Iraq was a state that was shooting at our aircraft that were enforcing the Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones on a regular basis. It was providing $25,000 for families of suicide bombers. It's a country that had used chemical weapons against its own people and its neighbors. The President went to the United Nations and to the Congress and made a conscious decision to do what was done.

FELDMAN: Can you assess the progress on the Iraq war effort, both in terms of advancing democracy and the impact it's having on Israel and the broader Middle East?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well certainly the success that's being achieved there, if one thinks about it, there were elections in January, then there was, October 15th in Iraq, there was a referendum on the constitution that had been drafted by the people elected by the Iraqi people, and now we're looking towards a third election in a single year on December 15th, where the people will be electing people under their new constitution. That is an enormous step forward for the people of Iraq.

In the past, what's kept the people away from each other has been a repressive regime that imposed a dictatorial system on all the people of that country -- Sunnis, Shia and Kurds. Now they're fashioning a piece of paper, a constitution, that will be that which will persuade all of them that they can live together and respect each other, and have confidence that they will not be repressed by each other. That's an enormous leap of faith. That's an accomplishment that's just breathtaking historically in that part of the world.

FELDMAN: What about in terms of, how might this help Israel and the broader Middle East and have the people kind of live together without fear of threats?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, if you think about it, Israel's a successful democracy. There are very few successful democracies in that part of the world. If Iraq, an important country with oil, with water, with an important history, with industrious people, intelligent people, well educated people -- If Iraq becomes a successful democracy, it unquestionably will have an effect on its neighbors and on the region in a way that will be favorable to peace-loving people and to other democracies.

FELDMAN: And it's already had an impact on Libya.

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Well, there are various things that have had an impact on Libya in terms of its weapons of mass destruction program, and certainly that's been a good thing for that part of the world. The exposure of the AQ Khan network had an effect on that. And we hope to see other countries step away from the development and the trading in weapons of mass destruction.

That is Steve Feldman. His second question to Rumsfeld was not how the war would affect Americans, it was FELDMAN: Can you assess the progress on the Iraq war effort, both in terms of advancing democracy and the impact it’s having on Israel and the broader Middle East?

In the past, what’s kept the people (Iraqis) away from each other has been a repressive regime that imposed a dictatorial system on all the people of that country -- Sunnis, Shia and Kurds. Now they're fashioning a piece of paper, a constitution, that will be that which will persuade all of them that they can live together and respect each other, and have confidence that they will not be repressed by each other. That's an enormous leap of faith. That’s an accomplishment that’s just breathtaking historically in that part of the world.

Deuce ☂Sun Oct 05, 07:21:00 AM EDTThat is Steve Feldman. His second question to Rumsfeld was not how the war would affect Americans, it was FELDMAN: Can you assess the progress on the Iraq war effort, both in terms of advancing democracy and the impact it’s having on Israel and the broader Middle East?

Israel is out for itself. It will lie, steal, kill or use any disinformation that will serve its cause. The real disgrace is the US Conga Line that services them. Meanwhile we have bigger problems than Israel. I have been dreading this:

Latest update : 2014-10-05

The Pakistani Taliban announced its allegiance to the Islamic State group on Saturday and ordered its jihadists to help the militants in their campaign to set up a global Islamic caliphate.

In a message to mark the Muslim holy festival of Eid al-Adha, the Pakistani Taliban said they fully supported the goals of the Islamic State group.

“Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with you in your happiness and your sorrow,” Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement emailed to Reuters from an unknown location.

Islamic State militants already control large stretches of land across both Syria and Iraq but have recently begun making advances into South Asia, which has traditionally been dominated by local insurgencies against both the Pakistani and Afghan governments.

Although there is little evidence yet of a firm alliance between the Islamic State group and al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban commanders, Islamic State fighters have been spotted recently in the Pakistani city of Peshawar distributing pamphlets.

The Islamic State group's trademark black flags have also been seen at street rallies in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Saturday's announcement comes after a September move by al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri to name former Taliban commander Asim Umar as the “emir” of a new South Asia branch of the terrorist network.

The Pakistani Taliban's statement went on to call for Islamist groups to forget their differences for the sake of unity.

“In these troubled days, we call for your patience and stability, especially now that all your enemies are united against you. Please put all your rivalries behind you," it said.

“All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you ... We are with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen (fighters) and with every possible support.”

The statement, released in Urdu, Pashto and Arabic, was sent a day after Islamic State militants beheaded British aid worker Alan Henning in a video posted online Friday, triggering condemnation by the British and US governments.

The move appears to defy recent speculation that the Pakistani Taliban, whose goal is to topple the government and set up a sharia state, is actually wary of the Islamic State group, which is driven by different ambitions that have little to do with South Asia.

Funded by local as well as foreign charity donations from wealthy supporters in the Gulf and elsewhere, the Pakistani Taliban operate separately from the Afghan insurgents of the same name but are loosely aligned with them.

There are also concerns that groups like the Haqqani network will likely exploit the security vacuum to strengthen their hold on Afghan territory following the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year.

The Haqqani network, despite being based in Pakistan, is narrowly focused on an insurgency in Afghanistan and has not commented publicly on recent developments regarding the Islamic State group.

The Pakistani Taliban have been beset by bitter internal rivalries over the past year, with the influential Mehsud tribal faction of the group refusing to accept the authority of Mullah Fazlullah, who came to power in late 2013.

Islamic State militants could move to exploit these rivalries by making inroads into a region rife with anti-Western ideology and full of young, unemployed men ready to take up arms to fight for Islam.

Meanwhile, world powers in both the Middle East and the West are struggling to keep up with the fast-changing nature of an international jihadist insurgency.

The Attorney General of Guerrero, Blanco Iñaki Cabrera, confirmed the location of the graves as they searched for the student teachers that are officially still missing. The four mass graves were found Friday in the town of Iguala, Guerrero.

In the Iguala colonias of Parota, Pueblo Viejo and Jardines del Sol, elements of State Civil Protection, Federal Police and State Police are working. So far it is not known how many bodies are in the graves, so we can not confirm that they contain all the 43 missing normalistas. ... In press conference, Guerrero Attorney Iñaki Blanco Cabrera, announced that today the names of the alleged perpetrators will be announced.

At the same time, the Governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero, reported that he will request to the local Congress, a trial to remove immunity for the Mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca (PRD), for his alleged responsibility in the disappearance of 43 students of Ayotzinapa and the violent events in which six people were killed and 17 more were injured.

The Mayor is accused of homicide, injuries and abuse of authority, arising from acts of violence reported last weekend, in which six people died.That operation, he said, involves elements of the army, Navy and Federal Police, State and 1,800 bureaucrats who joined this Thursday, October 2.

He also indicated that he will request an order of apprehension against the Secretary of local public security, Felipe Flores.

Phoenix police investigators will share some of those cases with The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com with the hope that a member of the public will come forward with a key piece of information allowing them to bring justice to victims and their families.

Can you help?

If you have information, call Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS. Silent Witness provides cash rewards for tips leading to arrests or indictments in unsolved crimes.

This just in ...Israel gives cover and opened a corridor for Jabhat al-Nusra along the Golan height demarcation line to reach south Lebanon and the southern approaches to Damascus.

There seems to be no concern in Tel Aviv that one day Jabhat al-Nusra could turn against Israel too. That is somewhat astonishing as both Hizbullah and Hamas started with Israeli support as counterweights to the Palestinian Liberation Organization only to later become the most capable foes of the Israeli occupation forces. One might have thought that Israeli strategists had learned from such foolishness.

But obviously they have not and now their lobby in the United States, here in form of the Washington Institute, supports that dumb policy by calling for further support for the Al-Qaida affiliate:

The risk of empowering an al Qaida affiliate is a small price to pay for Nusra’s contributions on the battlefield, said Jeffrey White, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who’s now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

U.S. military forces used bombers, fighter jets and helicopters to conduct six airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, CENTCOM said.

The strikes in Syria destroyed an ISIS bulldozer, two ISIS tanks, another ISIS vehicle and six ISIS attack positions, CENTCOM said in a release. The strikes in Iraq hit two mortar teams, a large ISIS unit, two smaller ISIS groups, and destroyed a total of three ISIS Humvees. CENTCOM said all of the friendly aircraft used in the attacks "departed the strike areas safely."

The US military unleashed a wave of air strikes against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq this weekend, destroying tanks, armored vehicles and mortar teams, a statement said on Sunday.

US fighter aircraft carried out three air strikes in Syria on Saturday, while fighter jets, bombers and helicopters were used in six assaults against IS positions in Iraq on Sunday, US Central Command said in a statement.

An airstrike in Syria northwest of Al Mayadin destroyed a bulldozer, two tanks and another vehicle.

Twin strikes northwest of the IS group's Raqa stronghold pounded an IS unit and destroyed six firing positions, the statement said.

In Iraq, four strikes northeast of Fallujah hit two mortar teams, a large IS unit and two smaller units. Three Humvees were destroyed in two more attacks near Hit and Sinjar, the statement said.

The strikes come after a global wave of revulsion triggered by the IS group's beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, made public in a video that emerged on . . . . .

AFP 2:45PM BST 05 Oct 2014Israel has hit out at Sweden's newly elected prime minister Stefan Loefven over his decision to recognise a Palestinian state."Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that he regrets that the new prime minister was in a hurry to make statements on Sweden's position regarding recognition of a Palestinian state, apparently before he had time even to study the issue in depth," Mr Lieberman's office quoted him as saying, in a statement issued late on Saturday.It added that Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, Carl Magnus Nesser, “will be invited for a talk at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem,” but did not say when.-----”Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that he regrets that the new prime minister was in a hurry to make statements on Sweden’s position regarding recognition of a Palestinian state, apparently before he had time even to study the issue in depth,” Mr Lieberman’s office quoted him as saying, in a statement issued late on Saturday.

The NetYahoodis level of condescension and arrogance is amusing. Only a NetYahood has the insight to see the hidden meaning into the Palestinian. No one else is qualified other than a NetYahoodi.

The fella writing below, he makes the case that Ash and Quirk have advocated for, in the past.The truth is, they are not "wrong", but they offer no alternative course.The only real alternative, for US, is independence from the need for the oil which is under those Arabian sands.

When offered a course that would provide for such an alternative, another source for the liquid energy needed to fuel the fleet of 300 million vehicles in the US, a source that is well suited to the strengths of our agricultural supremacy, well, our contributor that displays "a peculiar behavioral habit." declares that the US government should not dictate an "Energy Policy" that includes ethanol.

Libertarian ideology, at least in his mind, trumps a policy that would free US from the necessity to be tied to the Persian Gulf and the Saudi Arabians.

At the time, oil — not freedom, democracy or human rights — defined the principal American interest, and stability was the goal. Military power offered the means by which the United States hoped to attain that goal. Armed might would keep a lid on things. The pot might simmer, but it wouldn’t boil over.

In practice, however, whether putting boots on the ground or relying on missiles from above, subsequent U.S. efforts to promote stability have tended to produce just the opposite....

Want to measure what America’s war for the Middle East has accomplished through its first 13 iterations? The Islamic State has to rank prominently on any list of achievements. If Iraq possessed minimally effective security forces, Islamic State militants wouldn’t have a chance. But the Iraqi army we created won’t fight, in considerable measure because the Iraqi government we created doesn’t govern.

I would think that Sweden would have more important concerns than making a meaningless gesture concerning Palestinians. For example, the Muslim 5% of its population that commits >75% of its sex crimes. The country is the rape center of Europe.

Swedish priorities, are best set by the Swedes.Not by foreigners, not by those that refuse to weigh all the evidence.

Not by those that from a country that is the center of the Sex Industry in the Islamic Arc.

Tel Aviv devotes about $100,000 — more than a third of its international marketing budget — to drawing gay tourists. Though no exact figures exist, officials estimate that tens of thousands of gay tourists from abroad arrive annually."We are trying to create a model for openness, pluralism, tolerance," Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai told The Associated Press. "Live and let live — this is the city of Tel Aviv."

The city's first openly gay-owned hotel was opened recently and numerous city-backed travel sites direct gay visitors to the hottest clubs, bars and resorts in town.

"We've long recognized the economic potential of the gay community. The gay tourist is a quality tourist, who spends money and sets trends," said Pini Shani, a Tourism Ministry official who has been involved in the campaign.

"There's also no doubt that a tourist who's had a positive experience here is of PR value. If he leaves satisfied, he becomes an Israeli ambassador of good will."

"Spengler's Laws": "When a nation is reduced to selling its women, it's lost."

Unlike many countries, prostitution in Israel is legal.

To many people it is shocking to learn that in the "Holy Land" prostitution is allowed.

Prostitution in Israel is legal and not kept on the down low. Everyone knows about it and where to go to find a prostitute. It is a choice whether they decide to pay for sex or not. Prostitutes are known to be discrete.They do not go around talking about the men they have sex with. Some of the places where prostitution is more popular is in cities like Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Spengler's Universal Law #9: A country isn't beaten until it sells its women, but it's damned when its women sell themselves.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.